Carolyn Murphy Is Glad She Was Modeling in the Free-Clothes Era

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Sort-of-retired supermodel Carolyn Murphy has moved back to New York after spending some time living on a farm north of Los Angeles, raising her daughter. “I just decided to take some time off,” she said at the Van Cleef & Arpels gala at the Cooper-Hewitt Wednesday night. “I’ve been modeling since ‘93, ‘92, and that’s a pretty long time. I’m a single mother and I chose to focus on her.” And what’s it like watching Fashion Week unfold from the outside? “The industry’s much quicker. The turnover with models — I cannot keep up. And in my day, we had so much personality. We probably caused a lot more trouble, but it was fun.”

Really? Care to share any stories? “I just remember Stella Tenant and me dancing in Donatella Versace’s bathtub until like four in the morning,” she reminisced. “It was one of those ‘pinch me’ moments. I have stacks and stacks of journals. I’ll change the names if I ever decide to publish them.” Which she might, although right now the plan is “just to tuck them away in a hope chest, along with a lot of the great clothes that I’ve been able to acquire over the years. Which I hear, they’re not giving clothes away these days? Thank God for the freebies.”